EyeTV - My situation - Help.

[FocusAndEarnIt]

My Mom and my now ex-step-dad have seperated and he took all the TVs in the house, baiscally, so I no longer have one.

I was wondering if I could watch just some basic TV on my computer - with the EyeTV. We have DirecTV () and I have a box in my room; would I just hook up the box to the EyeTV and it would just work?

If you could please explain how it works, the best one for my situation(I want to just be able to watch it, doesn't have to be the best quality, but not bad, and to record would be pretty cool ), and how much it costs.

Thanks!

 

[Eidorian]

I was wondering if I could watch just some basic TV on my computer - with the EyeTV. We have DirecTV () and I have a box in my room; would I just hook up the box to the EyeTV and it would just work?

Are you more interested in anything beyond just watching TV? The cheapest Elgato tuner will work just fine on the MacBook and be able to record just fine. Expect $99-149.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Which one though?

All I just wanna do is be able to watch & record.

And then, if it records, I could edit in Final Cut Pro.

It would probably also be on my 17" iMac G5 1.9Ghz.

 

[rspeaker]

Looking at Elgato's website, it looks like the eyeTV hybrid will work for your needs... if you plan on using it often for recording, I might suggest getting the 250, because it's got a dedicated encoder and won't use up so many system resources. I bought a Miglia TVMicro, use it with my iMac CD... it gets bogged down far too frequently.

Also, consider Miglia... I've had no troubles with mine, and I saved ~$50 over an eyeTV hybrid. Does the exact same job using the exact same software.

 

[jsw]

Also, consider Miglia... I've had no troubles with mine, and I saved ~$50 over an eyeTV hybrid. Does the exact same job using the exact same software.

Well, the Hybrid not only has a dongle supporting A/V input but also will allow you to get HD over-the-air broadcasts.

Still, I agree with the recommendation for the 250. The Hybrid - and anything else that uses the CPU for encoding - can eat up a lot of cycles. Hardware encoding on the tuner is much better.

But the Miglia will do a fine job of standard-def recording - but, with DirecTV, I'm not sure you won't need composite A/V input, like the Hybrid and 250 have.

 

[Sinsinnati]

The Plextor Convertx PX-TV402U is also a fantastic tuner that works with Eye TV.

The Plextor ConvertX PVR for the Mac is the ultimate personal video recorder for the Mac. The PX-TV402U allows you to connect to a satellite TV, cable TV or broadcast TV signal and record programs to your Mac. You can then watch the video from the Mac or burn it to DVD for playback on a DVD player. You can also connect a camcorder, VCR or DVD player to record home videos to the Mac. The heart of the PX-TV402U is its multi-format encoder chip which converts video to the MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and DivX formats formats as it is being recorded to the Mac.

http://www.plextor.com/ENGLISH/products/TV402UMac.htm